Victorian Women

An Age of Paradox

Legal Status

• Married women subordinate

• Matrimonial Causes Act (1857)– Divorce through courts instead of

Parliament

• Widows and unmarried women less so

Cult of Domesticity

Mrs. Beeton

Class Roles Matter

• Aristocracy

• Middle Classes

• Crinoline (Hoopskirt)

Mythbusters

• 30% unmarried by age 35

• More than 50% worked outside the home

• Many different occupations

• Largest group: servants

Florence Nightingale

• 1820-1910

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, MD

• 1836-1917

Seeds of Feminism

• Divorce Bill of 1857

• Bedford College

• Women’s Suffrage

• The Subjection of Women

Queen Victoria